Carlton slams AFL crackdown on Judd-Visy deal

Carlton has added its weight in defiance of the AFL's decision not to approve a new third-party arrangement between captain Chris Judd and club sponsor Visy.

It says it will challenge the ruling, which will force the champion midfielder's $200,000 deal with Visy into the club's salary cap.

Blues CEO Greg Swann told SEN radio on Friday that the club would examine its options.

“I'm pretty sure there are avenues to go [down] – grievance tribunals, court," he said. "People are just having a bit of a look-see at what options we've got. It's certainly going to keep going.”

Mr Swann said Carlton had been surprised to receive a “two-liner” from the AFL on October 22 informing the club that Judd's deal could no longer be excluded from the Blues' additional services agreement limit, or total player payments ceiling.

He said ?he checked to see if the letter had been signed by Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, a vocal critic of the Visy deal that helped deliver the former West Coast captain to Carlton six years ago.

Mr Swann said Carlton was “in the dark” over the ruling. “We have to try and find at this stage $200,000 in our cap for next year that we hadn't forecast for until October 22.”

He said another 157 similar deals at other AFL clubs should also now come under the spotlight.

“Otherwise its discrimination. Why should one guy cop it and the other 157 are not?

He said the AFL had informed Carlton of 78 independent arrangements, and 80 employment agreements of a comparable nature. He said the AFL seemed to have "honed in on Juddy".

"And we just wonder whether everyone else has got the same treatment."

Mr Swann said his club had been given little chance to react to the ruling. “It was practically at the end of the trade period so we couldn't do anything about players, or trade blokes out.

“We'd probably like a bit more explanation as to how for five years it was fine, and the contract doesn't change one bit, and then all of a sudden it's not fine.”

The Blues administrator claimed the ruling would have also adverse implications for its dealings with the players association.

“If this crackdown does happen across the board, and we've had discussions with the player's association, I would think in future negotiations if the players can't make this money outside football, or they can make it but it gets included in the cap, then they're going to want the cap to go up quite substantially.

“And from the club point of view, obviously we don't want to be paying for that, and [from] the AFL's point of view they probably don't want to be paying for that, and in the end that will be an area of dispute as well.”

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